Bob Dylan awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

U.S. folk singer and songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

Author:
KPNX Staff

Published:
7:38 AM PST October 13, 2016

U.S. folk singer and songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

The 75-year-old won the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," the Swedish Academy said.

The surprise announcement marks the first time the award has gone to someone who is mainly seen as a musician.

"For 54 years he has been at it, reinventing himself," said Sara Danius, the academy's permanent secretary.

“Bob Dylan writes poetry for the ear. But it’s perfectly fine to read his works as poetry,” she said.

Minnesota-born Dylan is the first American to win the prize for literature since Toni Morrison in 1993.

Dylan, whose songs include "Blowin’ in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A-Changin," won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Earlier Thursday, the Italian news agency ANSA reported that playwright and actor Dario Fo, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1997, died in a hospital in Milan at the age of 90.

Famous for his biting political satire, the writer of "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" performed the one-man play Mistero Buffo around the world for 30 years.

"His satire, his research, his work on set design, his multi-faceted artistic activity remain the legacy of a great Italian in the world,” said Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The Nobel Prize in Literature was the last Nobel prize to be announced, after the prizes in economics medicine, physics, chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize. The winners will collect them at a ceremony on Dec. 10.